


No Place I'd Rather Be

by compo67



Series: Punzel Verse [16]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Bottom Jared, Cupcakes, Domestic, Established Relationship, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Implied Mpreg, M/M, POV Jared Padalecki, Slice of Life, Songfic, Timestamp, Top Jensen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 06:54:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3478616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compo67/pseuds/compo67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the day before Jensen's birthday and Jared gets in a next-day order for 200 cupcakes. Can he deliver this order and two life-changing presents without losing his mind? Only caffeine and sugar will tell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Place I'd Rather Be

**Author's Note:**

> "No Place I'd Rather Be" by Paul Thorn at the end. <3

A small, slight woman with bright red hair, Mrs. Tomlinson is a fourth grade teacher at the elementary school Jared hopes to send the kids to when it’s time.

There are talks from the preschool teachers that all three kids might be able to skip kindergarten and go into the first grade. They would start school at five instead of six years old, which would potentially be great, and yet there are still some reservations from all four of them.

First grade is a huge deal.

Kindergarten is a big deal as well, but the first grade means something different, something more permanent. Jared might as well send them off to college at this rate. He’s going to talk to the guys and Jensen about devising some way to never let the kids grow up. That will work. It has to.

When Mrs. Tomlinson suggests that she might be able to schedule a meeting with her favorite kindergarten teacher and personal friend, Jared becomes her new best friend at Matilda’s. And when she places a bakery order on February 28th for two hundred cupcakes by March 1st, he does his best to hide the twitch in his jaw and says, “Of course! Not a problem.” He does not, however, feel bad for charging her the full rush order fee.

If he could put three four year olds to work on frosting at least one hundred cupcakes, he would. It would be good for them to learn some motor skills and see what mommy has to do to make customers happy. This order is great for Matilda’s, and it’ll go towards their monthly bonuses—plus Jared gets to keep twenty percent of the bill. But it’s still a daunting task. Two hundred cupcakes do not mix, bake, and frost themselves. To make things worse, he’s still got an incredibly important cake to make for March 1st—an epic day in their family.

From six to eight in the evening, Jared works in the back, cleaning up everything from earlier in the day and prepping for Monday. He is not coming in tomorrow. He can’t.

At nine, when the shop closes up, Matilda leaves him the keys. Josie, one of the college student part-timers, asks Matilda if Jared will be all right.

“It’s best to just let him be,” Matilda replies, patting Jared on the back. “If you’re here when I open, Jared, goddess help me but I will kick your ass from here to next week. She doesn’t need those damn things until three p.m. tomorrow.”

Jared wipes sweat off of his forehead and stands back from the ovens for a second. He points at his extra large cup of iced coffee. “I’ve had three of those,” he says with a grin.

Sighing, Matilda shakes her head. There is no doubt in Jared’s mind that she could kick his ass. She’s five eleven and describes herself as stocky. After years of being in one of the West Coast’s most infamous female motorcycle gang, she has packed on muscle; Matilda possesses no tolerance for bullshit.

“Quit by midnight,” she insists. “You hear me?”

“Sure, sure.” He waves her off and gets back to work.

The first hour of this job was just assembling ingredients, choosing liners and flavors, and making calculations. Baking was never a hobby of his as a kid; his parents didn’t think boys belonged in the kitchen. His mother never shared her recipes with anyone. On his own, living with Tristan, Jared didn’t do too badly with meals. Chicken was easy to make, so was ground beef, and he could make a pot of rice or mashed potatoes from scratch when needed. When money was tight—as it often was, especially in the first few months of his pregnancy—he got used to grilled cheeses and quesadillas.

Now, here he is, making two hundred cupcakes at just another day of work.

Mrs. Tomlinson gave him vague flavor profiles. The first thing Jared set out to do was separate his batches. He starts with fifty banana cupcakes—fresh banana cake with cream vanilla frosting. They’re simple and light, good for people with not much of a sweet tooth. Jared preps, chops, and stays organized. Two trays are in the oven before nine, with two more waiting.

Next up is a batch of Cuban coffee cupcakes—Belgian chocolate cake with dark roasted Cuban coffee frosting, dusting with cinnamon and cocoa. These are richer, and the coffee packs a punch. The steps to make this frosting are more involved, since he has to grind the coffee beforehand, but it’s his most complicated batch and he’d like to get it out of the way. The next two are simple: triple cinnamon cupcakes with buttermilk cake and cinnamon cream cheese frosting, and coconut cupcakes with bourbon vanilla cake and coconut cream cheese frosting.

Surrounded by butter, eggs, and sugar, Jared works nonstop to several playlists on his phone. If he can finish by two in the morning, he can sneak Jensen’s present into the house. He’s stashed it here at work, because the kids are too good at finding things they’re not supposed to and Misha can’t keep a secret.

Midnight rolls around and Jared begins to crash.

He has just one more batch of coconut cupcakes to get through, but that’s the least of his worries. First off, he can confidently declare a kitchen disaster. Fuck. Mixing bowls and whisks are everywhere. He tried to stay neat, but after the first seventy five, he started to slack off. This is what Bailey calls a dishes monster.

Clean up is daunting, but it is small potatoes in comparison to the task of frosting two hundred cupcakes.

He should have charged Mrs. Tomlinson more.

They have a busy day planned. At nine, Hannah and Linda are coming over to take everyone out to Jensen’s favorite breakfast place. Reservations were made in January for their party of ten. Jared already knows what Jensen is going to order, because he orders it every time they go: an extra-large sausage and jalapeno cheese omelet with a side of hash browns, a tank of coffee, and waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. He’ll only eat one waffle, because there is always cake later.

That brings Jared to the last portion of his night: Jensen’s cake.

Lucky for Jared, simple is best for Jensen. He doesn’t enjoy rich cakes with a hundred components to them; he’ll eat a slice of it if it’s there, but Jared has seen the man eat half a chocolate cake in one sitting. Uncomplicated is the way to go. Eighty dollars of tip money was spent on high-end, gourmet ingredients for Jensen’s cake. The tote bag from the market is stashed in one of the coolers.

Before any progress can be made on Jensen’s cake, Jared has to frost at least half of these bald as hell cupcakes.

Jared fixes his sixth iced coffee with two additional shots of espresso. This drink puts his blood at fifty percent caffeine and rising.

Sitting down with a bag of vanilla frosting cradled in his arms, Jared gets to work.

 

Baking large batches of cupcakes in a limited amount of time requires patience and endurance. Jared pipes with the largest frosting tip that he can find. If he had more time, he might be able to show off some of his piping skills. The best he can do with these is to keep his work neat and uniform. Later on, he can add dustings of corresponding flavors on top, and maybe some candies or chocolate covered coffee beans.

At one thirty, Jared’s hands start to cramp up. He takes a five minute break and eats two banana cupcakes—extras he made to sustain himself on.

There is a layer of sugar over any and all of his exposed skin.

His hair is matted with frosting and sweat. The ponytail he has it all tied in sags pathetically, hanging limp over his shoulders. Focus. He has no time to dwell on how much his feet ache or how badly his hands hurt or how he’s roasting in this kitchen.

Stuffing the last of a cupcake into his mouth, he barely registers the sound of a knock at the back door. It takes a few more knocks for him to figure out what that noise is.  What kind of customer is banging on the back door at this hour? Don’t they know there is no coffee now?

“You’re either really late or incredibly early,” Jared grumbles, hunched over on a stool to dust the frosted batch of cinnamon cupcakes. He refuses to answer the door. Cupcakes. He has to frost seventy-five more or they’ll be bald forever and a bald cupcake may as well be a muffin and that’s just fucking sad and where did he put his coffee?

The knocking does not stop.

“Fine!”

Stomping over to the door, Jared is ready to defend himself if necessary with a bag full of Cuban coffee frosting. Whoever this potential burglar or nosy customer is will receive a sweet blow to the head.

Wrenching open the door, Jared raises the bag of frosting, anticipating an attack.

“You get frosting in my hair and I’ll cut you,” Jensen growls out, his eyes flitting from the bag to Jared and back to the bag. “What? You gonna frost me to death, Jared?”

Lowering the bag, Jared pouts. “I can swing this pretty hard.”

Somehow, Jensen muscles his way into the kitchen. His eyes go wide with the realization that Jared has been here since three in the afternoon. It is one forty-five in the morning. The kitchen looks like a giant cupcake threw up everywhere, and then exploded.

Jensen opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it, then opens it again. “...you’re coming home. _Now_.”

At the mention of his operation shutting down prematurely, Jared shakes his head and waves Jensen off. “No can do. _You_ go home. I can’t have you here.”

“Oh yeah? Why the fuck not?”

“No swearing!”

“The kids aren’t even here and they’ve been asleep for hours!”

“Well… still!” Jared starts frosting again, willing his hands to stop shaking. “I’ll be done in five minutes. Five minutes. Just… five minutes…”

“Have you eaten anything?” Brow furrowed, Jensen picks through trash and husks of empty frosting bags on the main counter. “Jared? Did you eat anything since lunch?”

Lunch. That was at like… noon, and Jared had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that he stuffed into his mouth as he did laundry and ran after Kaylee, who decided that it was nakey time. This is why he’s hesitant about sending them off to the first grade; intellectually they may be ready, but developmentally they may not be. He wants them all to be kids and have fun being kids. Starting school so early might rob them of that.

Wait… school? It’s not time for school. Who said anything about Jared going to school? He has to defeat the cupcake army.

Irritated from the derailment of his thoughts, Jared snaps out that of course he ate. He has consumed three cupcake bodies of the enemy and they’ve all been delicious…

“Jensen!” Jared’s mind pulls things together for a split second. With a gasp, Jared’s eyes go wide. “You’re not supposed to be here! Oh my god, get out!”

Time has not been spent on Jensen’s birthday cake. The only thing Jared has ready to go is the eggs at room temperature, which he nearly crushed a minute ago with his elbow.

Worse than that, Jensen’s present is in the café, propped on a table, in plain view. If Jensen decides to go out there and…

“I’m getting you a sandwich,” Jensen mutters, twisting his hips and stepping carefully over globs of frosting that were unfortunate victims to gravity. He makes his way closer and closer to the door. “You’re eating it, I’m calling M, and then we’re going the fuck home.”

Jensen’s hand on the door to the café, Jared cries out.

“Cut! I cut myself, ow! Oh god, there’s blood…”

“W-what? Let me see!” Jensen rushes over and tries to grab Jared’s left arm. “Jared, let me see! You weren’t even holding a knife… let me see…”

“I’m fine! I just… get me a band-aid!”

“Well I gotta see it so I know—wait.”

“…”

“Is that frosting?”

“…no.”

Jared has been awake since six this morning, when Bailey and Hailey launched themselves onto his rib cage for Saturday morning waffles and kisses. They conveniently missed Jensen in their attack. Kaylee snuck in a minute later and climbed into bed, scooting herself under Jensen’s arm and curling up to fall asleep again. Jared was left with two very awake little butts demanding whipped cream on their waffles.

So now, he’s just a little slaphappy. Everything is funny. Even Jensen’s angry face is funny.

Oh, everything but Jensen turning around and pushing the door to the café open—that is _not_ funny.

“I can’t believe you. You said you were gonna be home by eleven and I’ve been texting and where the fuck is your phone, huh? What’s the point in having a phone if you’re not gonna answer it? You know what sick, twisted crap ran through my…”

Too late.

The inevitable happens: Jensen sees his birthday present.

A black case waits laid out on the table, with a red bow on the top. The case is secondhand but what’s inside it is brand new, custom made, and personalized. Jensen steps towards the sight, now completely silent, and his hands slip over the middle until his fingers reach brass latches.

Green eyes peer up at Jared, questioning.

“I-I’m sorry,” Jared whispers, a twitch of a smile ghosting over his face. “It was gonna be a surprise at dinner.”

Last year, the kids broke Jensen’s guitar shortly after their birthday. When Bailey was supposed to be napping, he pulled it out of Jensen’s closet, curious to get a good look at the instrument daddy played. The girls joined in on the adventure and together, all three of them managed to get the guitar out of the case and carry it out to the stairs.

Jared has no idea what exactly happened, but someone lost their grip and the guitar tumbled over the stair guard and fell. It landed at such an angle that the neck broke in half. Misha and Jared nearly had heart attacks at the sound of the crash.

Everyone was eternally grateful that the guitar fell and not one of the kids.

However, it still sucked for Jensen to come home and find his guitar smashed.

The kids got their first true lesson in discipline then. There were extra chores and no dessert for a whole week. Bailey feared that Jensen might not love him anymore. Jensen was upset—and he held fast to the decided consequences—but he assured Bailey and everyone else that it was just a guitar. Guitars are replaceable. Little butts aren’t.

Jared saved fifty dollars a week from his tips for almost a year.

He took on extra baking jobs on the side and stashed those earnings away. In the summer, he worked as many shifts as possible, doubling what he set aside while the hours were good. Customers were wooed, spoiled, and worked over for every dollar they could leave in the pink tip jar at the register.

Last week, the final bill came in at just over two grand.

Opened up, the case reveals a guitar made just for Jensen.

The man himself remains speechless.

“It’s called The Pacific,” Jared murmurs. He bounces on his heel, unable to stay still. The café is lit only by some backlights. All the machines are quiet. “I guess… it’s smaller so you can hold it better. The neck is maple, and there’s an ebony fret board. I’ve got a pamphlet about it at home.”

In the dim lighting of the café, the guitar shines, sleek and smooth. It has been finished to perfection. He tested several display models at the store in Los Angeles. While Jared isn’t as big of a guitar player as Jensen, he knew what to look for. Every strum of The Pacific sounds out rich and detailed. It is responsive, expressive, and perfect for intimate venues.

Jensen cradles the guitar as carefully as he held the kids for the first time. He lifts the strap on the guitar and eases it over his shoulders.

Biting his bottom lip, Jensen plays light, happy chords.

This isn’t a loud guitar. If Jensen ever wants to play in a public place, he’ll have to get an amp. But in the privacy of the café, between the two of them, The Pacific rings out pure and true under Jensen’s hands.

Sugar and caffeine course through Jared. He gains his second wind by the sight of a handsome man holding a beautiful guitar.

“Is it okay?” he asks, standing on his toes and leaning forward. “Do you like it, Punzel?”

The kids weren’t born when they heard Jensen play for the first time. There were so many nights when Jared was uncomfortable, sick, or lost in his head and unable to climb out. For a good portion of those nights, Jensen was there to play. Sometimes there weren’t words, just chords played close to Jared’s belly.

It was enough.

He hopes this now, is enough.

A song starts, easy and soft. Expert fingers find every fret.

Jensen glances down at the guitar in awe, tuning here and there until he has the slow, steady sound he seeks. The tempo is languid. There are no particularly fancy chords—only solid strums over each string.

Flawless, deep, and rumbling, the voice that sings matches the instrument.

“Mornin’ coffee in the livin’ room.” Jensen steps closer to Jared. “I can smell familiar perfume. There’s no place I’d rather be.” Little by little, Jensen’s eyes meet Jared’s. A shy smile peeks out. “Me and the kids love nothing more than playing Twister on the kitchen floor.”

Sweetness and sincerity bumps shoulders with Jared. “Last night while we were laughing, it occurred to me: there’s no place I’d rather be. There’s no place, I’d rather be.” They lean against the bar. Jensen’s hands work without effort. The tempo draws out and Jensen gets a lilt to his voice developed after five years of immersion. “This little house is home to me. A gravel drive and a big shade tree, there’s no place I’d rather be.”

He turns out, pushing himself off the bar, and stands in front of Jared. The guitar fits snug in his hold.

“When I close my eyes, it’s your face I see.” The smile here is wide and uninhibited. “There’s no place I’d rather be. When I return, I’ve got a real short list. I wanna hug and a big wet kiss. What we have together means the world to me. There’s no place I’d rather be.”

Jared is crying sugary, pink tears.

This was his gift to Jensen and Jensen has completely turned it around.

Whatever pulled them together that day outside of Storybook is here. This time, Jensen is twenty-six and Jared is twenty-three. They are rich in family, love, and song.

Turning the guitar to lay on his back, Jensen leans into Jared.

There’s another present, besides the cake, and two in the morning on Jensen’s birthday is as good a time as they’re going to get today.

Seventy-five bSald cupcakes are waiting to be frosted. All the ingredients to make a chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting and strawberry layers wait inside the cooler. They won’t get home until four in the morning, and Jensen will have a stomach ache from eating the leftover frosting from his cake. Side by side, under Jared’s instructions, they will finish and box up the cupcakes in a haze of sugary delirium.

When they slip inside their room, Jared will pull Jensen down onto their bed, never giving a second thought to the sugar or frosting on their sheets. He’ll card his fingers through tawny hair and wrap his legs around Jensen’s lean, tan, muscled waist. They’ll arch and curve together, both of them gasping from the heat and friction of being fused together. The same hands that play The Pacific like a dream will roam over Jared, playing him in all the ways he’s come to love.

Jared will flip them over, stretch Jensen out, and show him—there’s no place he’d rather be.

For now, Jared’s chest squeezes as he forms the words he’s about to say. His head is clear—cupcakes and coffee and stress taking a step back.

Everything about this feels right, even if they are in Matilda’s with the lights off and there are chunks of dried frosting in Jared’s hair.

The lack of light doesn’t mean this is sad.

They have both learned that.

“Jen.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m gonna bake you a cake.”

“Yeah?”

“Chocolate.”

“Mm.”

“And… I have somethin’ else, if you want it.”

“Oh?”

“Yep.”

“Do I get to know what it is?”

“Maybe,” Jared laughs, reaching out and taking Jensen’s hands into his. He sweeps his thumbs over Jensen’s knuckles and gives a squeeze. “I don’t have vouchers to Gibson’s this time… but… I wanna try, Jen. And maybe… you wanna try too?”

Both of their hands are guided to the soft, sugar-smeared plane of Jared’s middle.

The more the merrier.                                                                           

Jensen’s eyes light up. His hands give a jolt and before Jared knows it, he is smothered in kisses, pushed down onto one of the café tables.

“Yes,” Jensen exhales, their lips pressed together. “Always yes, tall man.”

This never had to go anywhere. It could have been one date, one story, one chapter.

For the rest of the day, Jensen’s hands don’t stray far from Jared’s middle. They’re going to talk. They’re going to plan. And while it won’t happen for at least a little while more, they’re going to be parents again.

Jared pulls Jensen back into the kitchen. The guitar is put away for now.

He flashes a bright smile over his shoulder.

“Thanks, Punzel.”

**Author's Note:**

> Paul Thorn is one of my very favorite musicians. He's on tour right now, so if you also enjoy his music, I recommend going to see him in person. His shows are amazing. I'm always happy when I get to incorporate his songs into fic. :D
> 
> This is my something cheerful and sweet to balance me out this week. It's nice to get into big news in this verse. I can't help but feel excited for them. XD 
> 
> And yes, happy belated birthday Jensen!


End file.
